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Header photograph: Diego Colinamun ©

 

PROJECT: De-mapping the feat: an attempt to dismantle the official history and deconstruct colonial discourse by proposing social mapping as a tool for research and artistic creation

 

And yes, we were the first,

after the indians,

to come face to face with this land,

to measure it in steps, not varas,     

with a pioneer’s timid amazement.

María Julia Alemán de Brand (Esquel poet)

 

As a Mapuche creative research group, we propose to debate and evidence the crossroads that arises between the official history of the Welsh “feat” and our Mapuche Tehuelche people in the lower Chubut valley. Through our artistic sensitivity, we reflect upon identity as the people of this territory and upon the erased memories, which are yet another example of a policy of forgetting. And us, where were we?

Two distinct ways of settling, two forms of logic when considering the other person and their identity. What part did the Argentine state play in establishing the Welsh Settlement? The official discourse of yesterday is the same as that today: a continuation of the fledgling Argentine State and its border expansion strategy. 

Our work aims to de-map the official discourse of history, which absorbs tourism to sell a little Wales, making foreigners out of our people and demonising them while stealing our identity. By means of our artistic production and audiovisual performance --which includes a small montage series like networks of raster maps and the history that’s been denied to us--, we highlight how we were suddenly ‘dropped’ from the map of Chubut and, in the current rhetoric, how we continue to occupy those peripheries implanted by the official history.

Videoarte: TAIÑ MÜLEKAN - Our presence

 

Taiñ Mülekan, our presence, our habitat, our being, our existence, our pre-existence, our PERMANENCE; something that is rarely discussed. This piece of audiovisual art summarises our impressions and critical interpretations of the relationship between the Welsh settlers and the indigenous Tehuelche and Mapuche peoples, and the role of the Argentine State. With contributions from: Liliana Ancalao and excerpts from her poem ‘Para que drene esta memoria’ [To drain this memory]; the historian Matías Jones (who raises problems regarding the story of the Welsh settlers’ arrival and the formation of the Settlement); the singer, composer, and writer Celedonio ‘Chele’ Díaz (who brings to mind Juan Salvo); and the actress and performer Andrea Despó Cañuqueo, the intention of this work is to dismantle colonial and national narratives, to make ourselves visible and to tell stories from our own perspectives and feelings. With this, the silenced voices and stories and spaces of the past become present through the performative act of being in those places, visiting them and uncovering the history that has survived under the hide of the genocide. We incarnate through words, we say goodbye to the pain in the dance of the purrun, and we connect with who we are, with the land, and with our kuifikecheyem [ancestors].

The ‘Report and reflections on the creative project “De-mapping the feat” (research, strides and counter-strides)’ can be read here.

Collages (2024)

These collages were created by Nadia Pissano Paileman following a research trip and also following the lectures and talks of the historian Matías Jones and the poet-singer Chele Díaz, who both live in Trevelin. The images take us back to ‘our history, our Mapuche Tehuelche identity in Puel Mapu’ after a sensory journey, where the colours, the landscape, the smells and the orality of history create a visual product out of images of the recent past and the present.

 

Ester Andrea Despó Cañuqueo

I live in Trelew (Chubut) Puelmapu, and I hold the Mapuche Tehuelche identity, an identity inherited from my grandmothers. I am a Mapuche playwright, actress, amelkafe and performer. I have a degree from the Manuel Belgrano School of Fine Arts in Neuquén. I was part of the independent theatre group Metateatro de Trelew (1997–2013). I am a member of the Cátedra Abierta de Pueblos Originarios, Memoria y Recuperación [Indigenous Peoples, Remembrance and Recovery Open Research Group] at the National University of Patagonia San Juan Bosco (UNPSJB) in Trelew. I am a drama teacher in secondary schools and at the ISFDA Drama Teacher Training College 805. I also conduct theatre workshops in the 28 de Julio (rural area) and Dolavon areas. In my creative productions and my work as a teacher I try to use intercultural and decolonial perspectives, and appreciate indigenous culture. With the one-person Mapuche play Sueños de agua [Water dreams] I represented Chubut at the Fiesta Nacional del Teatro [the National Theater Festival], and I have participated in many national and international theatre festivals and meetings. Now, I continue to conduct aesthetic research on Mapuche theatre on the topics of body, memory and territory.

Nadia Paz Pissano Paileman

I'm Nadia Pissano Paileman, from the city of Trelew. I was raised by my grandmother, Doña Luisa Paileman, so I grew up among stories and among nomad women. In 2015, I began a teacher training course on linguistic interculturalism in the arts, and there I met the teacher Andrea Despó Cañuqueo, and that’s where my chance to reconcile and recognize began. Being Mapuche and being born in urban areas, with a separated family and stories of women forced to marry Italian immigrants in order to survive, is a painful path to walk and a necessary task. In my life, graphic design helped me question the narrative of what is usually considered ‘normal’, and also to draw up my own map based on historical research on the places where my mother’s family was born, in San Antonio Oeste, in Sierra Paileman. For these reasons, I have been an active member of the Cátedra Abierta de Pueblos Originarios, Memoria y Recuperación at the National University of Patagonia San Juan Bosco (UNPSJB), Trelew. It is vital to me that I continue to weave this web of memories and truth and justice because our people were in these territories before the nation state imposed borders on us. So, social mapping motivates me; the shapes in performative speech are able to reshape public spaces, maps that are like our own bodies, like social poems we compose as we walk.

 

Locations

Historic location of ‘Malacara’s Leap’.
Historic location of ‘The Valley of the Martyrs’. 
The Martyrs’ Monument. Las Plumas (Chubut).
Gaiman: Julio Argentino Roca square, monument commemorating the American conquest.
Puerto Madryn: Punta Cuevas. The Museum of the Landing’s roof terrace. Memorial de los galeses. Monumento al Indio.

Selected Texts

Ancalao, Liliana (2023). “Para que drene esta memoria”. En Gutxamkayaiñ, chachay, papay/ Conversaremos, anciana, anciano, queridos. Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, Colección Literaturas en Lenguas Originarias de América Miguel León Portilla.
Díaz, Celedonio “Chele” (2010). “El otro viaje de Juan salvo”. En Adriel de un extremo a otro: Cuentos de la Patagonia mágica. Editorial Musiquel [adapted story, based on the story told by a Tehuelche Mapuche to the author].
Jones, Matías. (2009). De galeses y tehuelche: El pacto fundacional de una historia oficial chubutense. XVIII Congreso de Historia de la Patagonia Argentino-Chilena, Trevelin, Chubut.
Matthews, Abraham (2004). Crónica de la Colonia Galesa de la Patagonia. Editorial Alfonsina [selection of letters].

Music

"Trutruca y kultrun", Cecil Gonzalez.
"Malowoñon", Chemu Am Mapuche Pigein.
“Tayül kaila milelo”, performed by Luna Navarro and Andrea Despó Cañuqueo.
"Caminos sonoros de la Patagonia", [The sonorous trails of Patagonia] Mario Silva.
"Canción para volver a la tierra", Chele Diaz. 
"Kaani", Choike factory.
Ülkantun "Yelton" de Manuela Thomas, performed by Luna Navarro and Andrea Despó Cañuqueo.

Bibliography (included selected images) 

Caviglia, Sergio Esteban (2015). 150 años de Rawson: La primera colonia permanente del Estado nacional en el Chubut. Rawson: Ministerio de Educación del Chubut.
Diarios de la época 1870 a 1885.
Dumrauf, Clemente (1996). Historia del Chubut. Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra.
Evans, John D. y Evans, Clery A. (1999). John Daniel Evans “El molinero”: Una historia entre Gales y la Colonia 16 de octubre. Rawson: Dirección de Impresiones Oficiales.
Foresti, Carlos (2003). Una frontera lejana: La colonización galesa del Chubut. Fotografías de John Murray Thomas, Henry E. Bowman, Carlos Foresti y otros. 1865-1935. Buenos Aires: Fundación Antorchas. 
Fotos antiguas del Chubut. Facebook.
Gobernación de la Pcia del Chubut, Secretaría de Cultura de la provincia, Consejo Federal de Inversiones (CFI). Galeses y Tehuelches: Historia de un encuentro en Patagonia
Huenchumil, Paula. ¿Qué es el wallmapu? Voces mapuche lo explican. Available at: https://www.biodiversidadla.org/Documentos/Que-es-el-Wallmapu-Voces-mapuche-lo-explican 
Nagy, Mariano y Papazian, Alexis (2011). El campo de concentración de Martín García: Entre el control estatal dentro de la isla y las prácticas de distribución de indígenas (1871-1886). Corpus: Archivos Virtuales de la Alteridad Americana, 1(2), https://doi.org/10.4000/corpusarchivos.1176
Neyens, Arlette. "Camaruco" [Choyke purrun image] (https://arletteneyens.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/el-camaruco/)
Pérez, Liliana (2015) Keu-kenk: Política indígena en la Patagonia 1865-1956. Trelew: Remitente Patagonia.
Pérez, Liliana (2022). Lelek aike: Del destierro a la comunidad. Trelew: Remitente Patagonia.
Pérez, Pilar (2022). Malón de ausencia: Historia hegemónica y relatos en disputa en torno a la “Conquista del Desierto”. Coordenada: Revista de Historia Local y Regional, 9(1).
Perrone, Jorge (1974). Diario de la historia argentina. Buenos Aires: Latitud 34.Raone, Juan Mario (1969). Fortines del desierto. Buenos Aires: Revista y Biblioteca del Suboficial.
Stella, Valentina (2019). Tensiones en torno al reconocimiento indígena: La lucha por ser mapuche y tehuelche en la costa y valle de Chubut. Cuadernos de Antropología Social, 59, 49-66. Available at: https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=180962612004.
Secretaría de Cultura de la Nación, Dirección Nacional de Artes Visuales, Subsecretaría de Cultura y Educación de la Provincia de Chubut (1987). Los galeses en Chubut: Fotografías. 
Torne, Belisario. Imagen del Camaruco Nahuelpan. https://x.com/belisariopolis/status/1303369763482107908
Vignati, Milcíades Alejo (1942). Iconografía Aborigen: Los Caciques Sayeweke, Inakayal y Foyel y sus Allegados. Revista del Museo de La Plata, 2(10), 13-48.
Williams, David (2007). Entre telones y tolderías. Trelew: Jornada. 

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Florinda Huentecoy (Aldea Epulef), Lucas Urtizberea and Eriberta Arce (Las Plumas), Lautaro Cárdenas Despó, Matías Jones (Trevelin), Liliana Ancalao (Comodoro Rivadavia), Chele Díaz (Trevelin), Biblioteca Agustín Álvarez de Trelew,  Luna Navarro Despó and Javier Soto. Many thanks to Lucia Ruiz of Dirección de Cultura de Gaiman [Gaiman Cultural Office], Fabio González of Museo Histórico Regional de Gaiman [Gaiman Regional History Museum] for the reading material and maps.